Putin's Dangerous Delusions

French President Emmanuel Macron characterized statements made by Russian President Vladimir Putin in a telephone conversation with him as “ridiculous” and “indeed baroque and threatening, which is nothing new.” Putin suggested that the French secret services had been involved in the ISIS terrorist attack in Moscow. This was an apparently a coordinated effort because Russian Defense Minister General of the Army Sergei Shoigu reportedly said the same thing to French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu. Moreover, the Russian suggestion of French involvement was made after President Putin had finally admitted that the Crocus City Hall concert terrorist attack had been made by “radical Islamists.”

In 2012, Putin attacked the United States for supposedly wanting to dominate the world, stating that, “They wish to control everything…. I have the impression that the United States needs no allies. It needs vassals.”[1] In 2017, President Putin declared that the United States “…claimed they were ready for cooperation in fighting terrorism, but in reality they were using those terrorists to destabilize Russia’s domestic situation.” He said that NATO was “…provoking us, trying to drag us into a confrontation.” (Emphasis in the original.) He also declared that NATO nations “…have sped up the process of deploying conventional and strategic weapons beyond the member states’ borders.” According to Putin, “NATO and the USA wanted a complete victory over the Soviet Union. They wanted to sit on the throne in Europe alone.” One hundred percent of Putin’s claims were untrue.

President Putin’s ridiculous 2024 claims about Russia fighting “neo-Naziism” in Ukraine are not new. In 2023, Nikolai Patrushev, the long-term Secretary of the Russian Security Council and a possible Putin successor, echoed this assertion, claiming that Ukraine was using “Neo-Nazi” groups in Russia to attack it. In 2015, then-Kremlin Chief of Staff Colonel General Sergei Ivanov claimed that “…in some countries in Eastern Europe particularly, but also Greece, Germany, Britain as well, to some extent, there is a growing neo-Nazi movement.” In 2014, Putin characterized Ukrainian defense against the Russian invasion of Eastern Ukraine as the work of “neo-Nazis…waging a real campaign of terror against civilians.” In the Kremlin’s view, any opposition to the Putin dictatorship or Russian imperialism is “neo-Nazi.”

In 2022, Patrushev said that the United States intended to “weaken, divide and destroy” Russia and was trying to weaken Russia in order to gain access to its mineral resources. He added that “the disintegration of the Russian Federation is not ruled out” by the United States. In 2016 Patrushev stated, “The U.S. leadership has set the target of a global domination for itself. Therefore, they don’t need [a] strong Russia. Just the opposite, they need to weaken our country at the most.”[2] In 2015, he claimed that the United States was trying to achieve the “disintegration” of Russia in order to get access to Russian national resources. In 2005, the official newspaper of the Russian Defense Ministry declared that the West was engaged in a covert struggle for Russian forces and territory and that because Russian has strategic nuclear forces, “With political will we will have something with which to respond at the critical moment in History.”

Putin’s confrontation with the West developed over a prolonged period of time. In 2012, Russian journalist Yulia Latynina wrote, “It appears that Putin is on a dangerous course. He is gradually sliding down into the category of other rogue leaders, such as former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, former Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi and Assad.” In 2014, noted historian Walter Laqueur observed that, “For some considerable time the element of fantasy in Russian political discourse has been strong (and growing stronger), not only at the popular level but in official statements.” In 2015, Vladislav Inozemtsev, Director of the Moscow-based Center for Post-Industrial Studies wrote that, “Russian propaganda is incredibly inane and officials’ lie shamelessly and flagrantly.”

In 2015, noted Russian journalist Alexander Golts observed that, “Putin continues to profess a very primitive version of Realpolitik.” He also noted that, “if Moscow cannot offer anything constructive to the international dialogue, it must create new problems in order to remain relevant.”

In 2022, former Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev observed, “When the country [Russia] decided to choose the path of confrontation with the West…for this policy to receive public support, the state needed to launch propaganda efforts. This propaganda began to use old Soviet ideas about NATO aggression, about a West that wants to enslave Russia and obtain access to its resources.” Mr. Bondarev also noted that, “It is not uncommon in Russia to think European countries are unable to decide on their own, that the European Union always does as [US President] Joe Biden says.” Putin often refers to European nations as U.S. “satellites.” In 2023, Putin declared, “The United States and its satellites have taken a steady course towards hegemony in military affairs, politics, the economy, culture and even morals and values.” In 2024, Putin said that “Ukraine is obviously a satellite state of the US.” He also claimed the continuation of the Ukraine war after March 2022 was the result of “…the United States and its satellites in Europe.” In Putin’s 2024 address to the Federal Assembly he declared that, “The United States and its satellites have, in fact, dismantled the European security system which has created risks for everyone.”

The Putin regime has long regarded itself as at war with the United States, which Putin hates.

Putin’s world view embraces the legitimacy of Rusisan imperial domination and mirror images Russian objectives upon NATO. This is most blatantly evident in his defense of his war against Ukraine. In March 2024, Deputy chief of the Russian National Security Council (and former President) Dmitri Medvedev displayed a map of postwar Russia in which “…the vast majority of Ukraine’s territory [is] gobbled up by Russia.” Russian imperialism is quite popular in Russia.

In the timeframe of the Putin-Macron discussion, Putin’s nuclear threats had become particularly extreme. In President Putin’s February 2024 address to the Russian Federal Assembly, he said, “[Western nations] must realise that we also have weapons that can hit targets on their territory. All this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilization.” In March 2024, Putin declared that “…Russia’s nuclear forces are in full readiness ‘from the military-technical viewpoint, we’re prepared’,” and that the Russia’s nuclear Triad was “more modern than any other triad.” In his election victory speech, President Putin stated that Russia and NATO would could be “one step away from a full-scale World War III.”

A former member of Putin’s elite security team, Gleb Karakulov, has described him as isolated, paranoid, and afraid, and noted that, “All the information he receives is only from people close to him. That is, he lives in a kind of information vacuum.” Karakulov said Putin does not use a cell phone or the internet and when he travels views only Russian state television. Russian state television is a product of Putinism. According to Alexander Golts, it has long argued that the “…West is constantly threatening peace-loving Russia.” Today, it is rabidly supportive of Putin’s imperial agenda and frequently urges a Russian nuclear attack on NATO and the United States. In April 2024, a commentator on Russian state television declared, “We want to change the future of Europe. You’ve f***** up the present, you gentlemen Europeans…. You’ve chosen these morons to lead you. But we are trying to change your future, which [currently] means 200-250 million dead or maimed Europeans. That’s the price of nuclear war.” On Russian state television, the consequences of a nuclear war to Russia are virtually ignored.

As British journalist Con Couglin has pointed out, “The longer the war continues in Ukraine, the more Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be losing touch with reality.” High level nuclear threats are common in Putin’s Russia, particularly in relation to Putin’s war against Ukraine. Putin’s paranoia and isolation from reality take on a much greater significance in the context of Russia’s invasion of its neighbor, its nuclear superiority, its low nuclear use threshold, and its nuclear threats. Putin’s world view is very dangerous because it is divorced from reality and is backed by the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Nuclear escalation is built into Putin’s nuclear doctrine. Everything that happens in any future nuclear crisis will be viewed in Moscow through the prism of Putin’s world of political and historical fantasy.

According to the United Kingdom’s Defense Ministry, Putin’s war against Ukraine has cost Russia 350,000 casualties. Unless it threatens his hold on power, Putin could care less. His main objective is expanding Russia’s borders and enhancing Russia’s power on the global stage. Indeed, in 2023, Putin attacked the early 20^th century Bolsheviks because of their withdrawal for World War I on the grounds that, “Intrigues, bickering and politicking behind the back of the army and the people turned out to be the greatest catastrophe, the destruction of the army and the state, loss of huge territories, resulting in a tragedy and a civil war.” Attacking the Communist legacy is not common in Moscow. Lenin is still in his mausoleum in Red Square. It reflects how important territorial control and expansion is to Vladimir Putin. Putin’s concern appears to be that Russia’s withdrawal from World War I lost Russia the gain of Istanbul.[3]

According to General Christopher Cavoli, the head of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, “In sum, Russia is on track to command the largest military on the continent and a defense industrial complex capable of generating substantial amounts of ammunition and materiel in support of large scale combat operations…Regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, Russia will be larger, more lethal, and angrier with the West than when it invaded. Diplomatically, Russia has used the past two years to attempt to alter the global security architecture by creating relationships that challenge the existing order.”

[1] “Putin accuses the US of wish to dominate the world, TASS, January 25, 2012. No longer posted on the TASS web page.

[2] “Patrushev: U.S. wishes to make Russia as weak as possible, force its disintegration in order to gain access to resources,” Interfax, January 26, 2016, available at https://interfax.com/.

[3] Simon Sebag Montefiore, “Putin's imperial adventure,” International New York Times, October 10, 2015, available at https://dialog.proquest.com/professional/professionalnewsstand/docview/1720504009/fulltext/18E477CC2573483E21C/46?accountid=155509&accountid=155509&site=professionalnewsstand&t:ac=18E477CC2573483E21C/3&t:cp=maintain/resultcitationblocksbrief&t:zoneid=transactionalZone_e59607cbe40b39.